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initiative, referendum, and recall term limits Voting

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Citizen Initiatives, term limits, North Dakota

North Dakota state representatives (and I use that term loosely) are unhappy. 

Very unhappy.

They have no use for the Ethics Commission that voters established back in 2018 by passing a constitutional amendment initiated by citizen petition. State legislators reacted by trying to — ahem — “fix” the horse the ethics measure “rode in on.” 

That is, wreck the state’s ballot initiative process, to prevent citizens from making such reforms happen … without any “help” from politicians.

Legislators placed a constitutional amendment on the ballot to require that any citizen-​initiated amendment be approved not merely by North Dakota voters, but then by both chambers of the state legislature. Their amendment, amid uproar, was finally amended so that if legislators voted the initiative down, voters would get a second vote on it. 

Still, 62 percent of voters said, “No, thanks!”

Then, in 2022, the state Chamber of Commerce and other special interests attempted to use the citizen petition process, which they always say is way too easy. Yet, these insiders failed to gather enough signatures to qualify their measure requiring a 60 percent supermajority to pass an initiative. 

Meanwhile, term limits supporters gathered enough signatures* and, last November, North Dakotans said, “Yes!” 

Seems politicians in Bismarck, the state capital, are even less fond of term limits. They’ve introduced a raft of bills designed to kill the citizen petition process:

  • House Bill 1452 would slap a 90 percent tax on contributions to ballot measures by any American living outside North Dakota. 
  • House Bill 1230 would fine a campaign committee $10,000 and each of committee member $1,000 each if the petitions they turn in fail to have enough valid signatures to qualify the initiative.
  • Senate Concurrent Resolution 4013 would amend the state constitution to (a) require 25 percent more voter signatures, (b) outlaw any payment to signature gatherers (something the U.S. Supreme Court has already unanimously ruled state governments cannot do), © block new residents from petitioning in the state for in some cases over a year, and (d) mandate a 67 percent vote to pass a citizen-​initiated ballot measure. 

North Dakota legislators prove the case for term limits. And the horse it rode in on: citizen initiative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Though term limits supporters had to fight the 30-​year incumbent Secretary of State’s attempt to block the petition all the way to the state’s highest court, which ruled unanimously to place term limits before the voters.

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Good News … For Now

Florida, legislature, citizens initiative

For now.

One must always add that proviso — at least with respect to constitutional provisions like term limits and citizen initiative rights, which limit the power of lawmakers and expand that of citizens. For these, incumbents’ hostility never ends.

But for now? The news is good. 

The Florida House of Representatives website reports that HJR 1127 “Died on Second Reading Calendar” in mid-​March. The same fate is reported for the companion senate bill.

The measure would have amended the constitution to limit citizen-​initiated amendments “to matters relating to procedural subjects or to structure of government or of State Constitution.”

Citizen initiatives would have been prohibited from dealing with policy matters, including legislatively enacted (or citizen-​enacted) policy that voters seek to reverse.*

During the battle over the measure, Kara Gross of the ACLU observed that some lawmakers “continue to find new ways to make the already-​stringent citizen initiative process even more challenging.”

One legislator who challenged the Republican-​sponsored measure was Democratic Representative Andrew Learned.

“Is it really best that the legislature make decisions and not the citizens of Florida on the ballot?” he asked. “If the people of Florida at the ballot aren’t a check on the legislature, I don’t know what is.”

No matter how unpopular such a bill might be with mere constituents, many lawmakers would have had no problem imposing it. As a constitutional amendment, though, such a change must be approved by voters. 

And that proved a bridge too far.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 * Florida politicians cry crocodile tears over citizen initiatives amending the constitution instead of merely changing a statute. Those same legislators refuse to establish a path for citizens to petition statutory changes onto the ballot.

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Death Star Destroys Democracy

Mississippi, democracy, citizen initiative

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

That’s Obi-​Wan Kenobi’s line in the original Star Wars movie, sensing that the Empire’s Death Star had obliterated all the inhabitants of the Planet Alderaan. 

It popped into my mind on Friday, after learning of the ruling handed down by the Mississippi Supreme Court that not only strikes down a medical marijuana ballot initiative passed by voters last November but “judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process,” as Justice James Maxwell wrote in his fiery dissent.

The Magnolia State’s entire initiative process has been destroyed. 

When the direct citizen initiative process was enacted, in 1992, Mississippi sported five congressional representatives. The constitutional provision setting out how to qualify an initiative was worded to allow only “one-​fifth” of the required petition signatures to come from any of the state’s five congressional districts (CDs). After the 2000 census, however, the state lost a congressional seat. Now with only four, simple math does not allow a way to get the prescribed balance of signatures.

Talk about a catch-22!

State officials just kept using their old maps with five CDs for ballot initiatives in order to comply with the letter of the law. But the court says that does not suffice. 

Only a constitutional amendment can restore this citizen check on politicians, and after the court’s ruling, only the legislature can place that amendment on the ballot. 

“Legislative leaders have not said clearly why they have not updated the initiative process in the 20 years since Mississippi lost a congressional district,” the Jackson Clarion Ledger reported Friday.

That’s simple: They don’t want citizens to have a check on them. 

Can citizens strike back?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: Mississippi voters first passed an initiative and referendum process in 1914 and the state supreme court upheld the validity of the process against a legal challenge in 1916. But after a 1922 initiative ruffled establishment feathers, the state supreme court reversed its earlier ruling and struck down the process in total. It was not until 70 years later, that the legislature would act to restore some measure of citizen initiative.

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Wolves, Checks, Balances

wolves, democracy, initiatives

“Propositions are a pure democracy,” Allen Thomas declares, “and a threat to the rights of our republic.” 

Citizen-​initiated ballot measures, he contends, “bypass the system.” 

Thomas’s wrongheaded essay — completely outside any right-​minded head — “A Proposition To End Ballot Propositions,” appeared on the website of KLZ 560 AM talk show host Kim Monson.

Thomas, an author and commentator in Colorado, refers to the electorate as “the mob” and offers the old standby wolves-​and-​sheep-​voting analogy. “Our Republic works,” informs Mr. Thomas, “because we bypass a direct democracy and instead balance the power of legislation between the state legislature and the governorship. It is a system of checks and balances.”

Yet, he does not mention the most critical check on both citizen-​initiated and legislative lawmaking: judicial review. We have courts that protect our rights against encroachment in law. In fact, in the real world, it seems the courts are far more demanding in reviewing initiatives for constitutional violations than the bills legislatures pass. 

Mr. Thomas also ignores that so many reforms — term limits jump to mind — would be impossible if only politicians acted.

Worse still, is the defeatism. “Progressives … are much better at it,” he concedes, adding “We also cannot count on the Colorado populace to think more reasonably.”

So, Thomas wants to “abolish” citizen initiatives. 

More hopeful is George Mason University Professor Ilya Somin. “Referendums are a promising tool for libertarian progress,” argues Somin at Reason, “one with a proven record of success.” No need for despair. 

“Much can be done,” Somin adds, “to build on that record and extend it.”

He’s right: Don’t be discouraged; take the initiative!

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pandemic Petitioning?

closed, electronic signature, voting, elections, petitions, citizen,

“Our political system, our way of life, our Constitution cannot be let go,” the Libertarian Party’s Nicholas Sarwark argued on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “just because there is a terrible illness spreading through the country.”

His concern? Libertarians — and Greens and other parties or independent candidates — must still gather hundreds of thousands of voter signatures to put their candidates on state ballots this November. 

And so, too, must citizen-​initiated ballot measures.

But who wants to petition into a deadly pandemic? Supposing you carefully made a grocery run, would you stop to chat with petitioners and grab their pen to sign? 

“That would be a public health nightmare,” explained Sarwark, “to force petitioners to go out with clipboards and gather signatures.” 

Libertarians are asking governors “to suspend these requirements that would endanger the public.” 

Cogent points, but I’m not so sure governors have lawful power to order candidates or initiatives onto the ballot. 

Much less the inclination.

Legislatures could act … but why help competing candidates gain access to the ballot? 

And as for green-​lighting issues that haven’t gone through their sausage-maker? 

Puh-​leeze.

Back in 2010, the Utah Supreme Court ruled that electronic signatures were legally valid. Rather than facilitate that process, the state legislature quickly banned it. 

But it is the obvious solution: allow voters to sign petitions online for candidates or ballot initiatives.* 

“The law has long recognized electronic signatures as legally effective where hand-​signed signatures are required,” contends Barry Statford in a law review article. “As early as 1869, the New Hampshire Supreme Court acknowledged the validity of a contract accepted by telegraph.”

The courts should mandate state acceptance of electronic signatures. 

Let’s sue.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Voters in Boulder, Colorado, passed an initiative allowing electronic signatures in 2018. 

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closed, electronic signature, voting, elections, petitions, citizen,

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The Rest of the News

Matt Pitsch, Arkansas, initiative, citizen, ballot,

Reid Wilson’s very welcome reporting in The Hill, recently, was headlined, “GOP legislators clamping down on voter initiatives.” 

This disrespect for the people and their basic, democratic check on legislative power is far too common, and something about which people need to know. 

For instance, ballot measures in Florida already must garner a supermajority of 60 percent to win, but politicians are now proposing that threshold be hiked still higher to 67 percent. Not to mention bills to burden petitioners with unconstitutional restrictions.

Though most of the attacks are coming from Republican-​dominated legislatures, the article also made clear that Democratic Party legislators in several liberal states — California, Oregon, Washington — are also trying to “take power away from voters.”

But the article lacked some very pertinent information, allowing politicians to make some terribly misleading charges against direct democracy. 

“In the last seven elections, we’ve actually changed our constitution 20 times,” complains Arkansas State Sen. Mat Pitsch, the sponsor of legislation making petitioning for citizen-​initiated ballot measures more onerous. “We’re averaging three changes every other year. Things that normally are voted on by elected representatives were making their way through constitutional ballot measures.”

Sen. Pitsch thinks legislators should make these decisions, instead of voters. How convenient. 

But the state’s motto is “The People Rule.”

Honest people can disagree about how often state constitutions should be amended, but 20 amendments in 14 years does not make Arkansas one of the more prolific states. Moreover, consider the genesis of those 20 amendments. Only three were citizen-​sponsored measures; the other 17, the vast majority, were placed on the ballot by … legislators! 

A fact the reader should have been told.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Matt Pitsch, Arkansas, initiative, citizen, ballot,

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